Art Layers

Art layers give you the possibility to divide the artwork in your drawing on different layers. For example, you can separate the outline and colour fill on two art layers, similar to 1950s traditional cell animation. These art layers are contained within a single drawing as opposed to the layers in the Timeline view or Xsheet columns where individual drawings with individual timing are stacked one on top of the other—see Creating Strokes.

You can access the Art layers through the Camera and Drawing views bottom toolbar. By default, the art layers are hidden. Everything is drawn on the Line Art layer. You need to enable the Use Advanced Art Mode option.

Each layer can be used for separate hand-drawn animation tasks, letting you organize your work and facilitate creation and revision.

In hand-drawn animation, you use the Colour Art layer to paint your animation. The outline is drawn in the Line Art layer and colour is painted in the Colour Art layer. Strokes (invisible lines) are generated from Line Art to contain the painted area.

When you are doing rough animation, you may want to send a clip for feedback or approval before carrying on with your work. If you have several characters in your project that are overlapping, it may be difficult to understand what is going on as you can see through the characters. Toon Boom Harmony can generate a matte automatically in the Underlay, or even in the Colour Art layer, and fill all the zones inside your characters to make them opaque. This process is fast and easy, and allows you to send easy-to-understand movies.

In the Art Layer toolbar, click the Line Art or Colour Art buttons. When switching art layers, you can edit the select layer without affecting the other one.

Click the Preview All Enabled Art Layers button to display both layers together. Even when the Preview mode is enabled, you will only be able to edit the select art layer. The other ones are only displayed as a reference. By default, the Preview mode is always enabled in the Camera view. You will only be able to see the select art layer by itself if you enable the Current Drawing on Top option located in the Camera bottom toolbar.

NOTE:

To edit both Line Art and Colour Art at the same time, you must enable the Apply to Line Art and Colour Art button in the Tool Properties of the tools supporting the operation.

In the Camera or Drawing view, select the drawing you want to create a matte for.

NOTE: You can also apply the operation to all the drawings in the layer at the same time.

Do one of the following:

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From the top menu, select Drawing > Generate Auto-Matte.

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In the Camera or Drawing menu, select Drawing > Generate Auto-Matte.

The Auto-Matte dialog box opens.

If you want to create a matte for all the drawings included in your layer, select the Apply to All Drawings option.

Depending on how precise or rough your line is, increase or decrease the radius value. Use a lower value, the closer to your lines’ contours the matte will be shaped. The higher the value, the looser the matte will be shaped.

In the Source Art menu, select the layer from which you want the matte created: Line Art orColour Art.

In the Destination Art menu, select the layer on which you want the matte to be created: Line Art orColour Art.

If you already have artwork on the destination layer and you want the content to be deleted before the matte is added into it, select the Clear Destination Art First option.

If you want the contour of your lines to be copied as invisible lines in your matte drawing (in case you ever need to keep them for later), select the Copy Stroke in Destination option.

Click OK.

Creating Strokes

A drawing is composed of Line and Colour filling layers. Lines and colours can be separated or kept together, depending on which animation process you use. The following diagram presents Line Art and Colour Art recommendations based on the selected animation workflow.

When a traditional drawing is scanned, strokes are automatically created in the Colour Art from the Line Art when drawings are vectorized unless you specified otherwise.

When working with Cut-out animation, we recommend that you do all of the work in the Line Art.

Once the drawing sequence is completed for paperless drawings, you can proceed with creating Colour Art strokes if you plan to paint the animation in the Colour Art. Use the Create Colour Art from Line Art option to create strokes from your lines.

You can create strokes in the Colour Art during the following stages:

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After the full drawing is completed in Line Art

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While drawing in Line Art

You may have some traditional drawings that need to be fixed; for example, needing extra lines to patch gaps. Use the Auto-Create Colour Art from Brush option to create the strokes at the same time as the lines are drawn. This creates strokes from the lines and brush strokes created in the Line Art while you draw and is useful for fixing drawings. However, if you are drawing a new sketch, it is better to create the strokes afterward using the Create Colour Art from Line Art option.